An Eternal Bond
by operationDaalek
Summary: Rose and the Doctor (not Tentoo, but Ten himself) discover an ancient rock with a prophecy on it that says that they are destined to be together forever. Of course they are delighted, but this changes both their lives in ways they couldn't possibly have imagined before.
1. Prologue

"Hey, Rose?" The Doctor turned over in bed and whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Remember that ol' rock we saw in the museum with all that weird ancient language written on it, and when we were both coincidentally touching it at the same time, it translated into English?"

"Mhm." She smiled and snuggled up closer to him.

"And it was actually an ancient prophecy that said that we would be together forever."

"Yeah." Despite the fact that she had been there when it happened and had heard him recount this many times before, she liked to hear it again regardless. "And here we are."

He smiled and stroked her hair. "Can I just say, you're so amazing that even the ancient forces predicted your arrival and our fate."

Rose laughed. "You too."

He inhaled sharply and sat up in bed all of a sudden. "You don't regret marrying me, do you?"

"Of course I don't!" She frowned at him. "What a stupid question to ask. Of course I don't, and I swear I never will."

The Doctor nodded slowly. "Alright. Good. That's really good to hear."

"Why are you asking me this all of a sudden?"

"No, I don't know, it's just…" He scratched his head awkwardly.

"Are you feeling insecure again? Come here," she muttered and snuggled up close against him, engulfing him in a hug. "You know I will always love you. Don't be such a silly."

"Yeah, alright." He gave in and smiled tenderly at her as he reciprocated the hug, rubbing circles on her back. "I love you too."

She fell asleep in no time at all, and the Doctor turned his gaze to the window, out to the starry sky filled with planets and stars and great galaxies. He gave a melancholy little sigh and closed his eyes with what almost seemed like pain. Tonight, he wished that Time Lords had the ability to fall asleep as fast as humans did; he really needed it. Especially on this night when his mind…well, his 27 minds…refused to leave him alone. If you think overthinking feels awful, try overthinking but on a scale 27 times bigger.

He shifted over gently so as not to wake Rose, and turned off the nightlight, leaving him in the dark with his thoughts torturing him over and over again…


	2. Chapter 1

"Mornin' Doctor!" Rose greeted cheerily as she came bouncing down the stairs. She skipped over to where he was standing and planted a kiss on his shoulder. "How'd you sleep last night?"

"Good, yeah, good," he replied distractedly, trying to pour out a glass of milk at the same time.

Rose stared at him. "You seem really tired. Have you been skipping the sleep again?" she chided.

"I've told you, Time Lords don't need as much sleep as humans do!" he countered. "So even if I wanted to, I couldn't have fallen asleep." He set the glass of milk down on the counter and put the rest of the milk back in the fridge.

Rose sighed. "Alright. I keep forgetting that, sorry." She helped herself to a stack of pancakes sitting on the table.

"Hey! Those were mine," he grumbled.

"Sorry," she mumbled through a mouthful of pancakes, grinning at him. All he could do was grunt in reply and proceed to fry an omelette for himself.

The Doctor finally had his own breakfast ready, and joined Rose at the table. "So, any luck finding a new job lately?"

She shook her head. "No vacancies anywhere."

"Well, keep trying and you might find one, somehow," he encouraged her. "Why'd you quit your last job anyway? You were so good at it!"

"My boss said he didn't believe in aliens, so I told him the only reason why he was still sitting there was that an alien had saved all of London from more aliens. He called me a nutcase so I quit."

"Oh boy." The Doctor burst out laughing. "Well, you'll just have to find a better boss then."

"Exactly." She grinned at him and took a strawberry.

"So since you don't have work, shall we go off adventuring today?" he asked hopefully.

"I need to stay and find job vacancies," she said, but sounded unsure.

He rolled his eyes. "Come _ooonnnn,"_ he pleaded. "It gets boring without you."

She laughed and jumped to her feet. "How can I ever say no to you? Go get ready, I'll be back after I do the dishes."

 _A few hours later…_

Rose ran away from a Cyberman as it threatened to delete her. She baited it straight to the TARDIS. The Doctor flung open the TARDIS doors and she dashed straight in, and he quickly grabbed her gold watch from off the console where she'd left it earlier. He waited for the Cyberman to approach, then as quickly as he could, flung the watch at the Cyberman, at the same time melting it mid-air with his sonic screwdriver so that by the time it landed, there was liquid gold splattered all over the Cyberman which was already beginning to harden and fix itself to the metal. Groaning in anguish, it fell to the ground and lay still.

"What'd I tell ya? Gold messes with them. Scrambles their circuits around. I managed to melt it mid-air, at the same time amplifying the charge so that it would cause a greater damage." The Doctor flipped his sonic screwdriver in the air proudly. "Was my shooting impressive, or what?"

"Yeah, _you_ think you're so impressive," Rose laughed out loud. "Anyway, what do you mean by using my watch? Do you have any idea how much that was worth?"

"No I don't, but go dig around in the TARDIS wardrobe. Maybe it's got a special gift for you," he said and winked. Her eyes went wide and she flew to the wardrobe where inside, she found a gold watch, an exact replica of the one that the Doctor had destroyed.

She buckled it around her wrist and went back to the main console room. "Shall we go home? I'm tired," she suggested and yawned.

"Alright then," he said reluctantly but set the coordinates for home.

When they got back, Rose went directly to the bedroom to take a nap while the Doctor did some maintenance inside the TARDIS.

As he worked on the translation circuit, a memory flashed through his mind.

A few weeks earlier, he'd taken Rose to see the future. They'd gone to the park, and just sat there, admiring all the new species of plants that scientists had managed to develop. It was wildly breathtaking and fascinating.

They'd almost fallen asleep on the grass when the Doctor, having more sensitive hearing, had picked up on a couple squabbling. It wasn't very loud, just vague background noise to Rose, but the Doctor could hear what they were saying.

"…never have time for me!" the woman was yelling. "You just go off in that bloody…never make time for me…you don't care about me…am I not important anymore…shut up…"

He strained his ears further. Even with his superior Time Lord hearing skills, they were quite far away and hard to eavesdrop on.

"…bore me to death…alone…you're one to talk…out all day with work, at night too exhausted…inconsiderate…strangers under the same roof…" the man was yelling back.

He tuned out of his extra-sensitive hearing mode and shifted his gaze to Rose, dozing off next to him.

"Rose, dear, we've gotta go home," he said gently.

"I don't wanna go," she said contentedly.

"We have to. Now," he added firmly. "The TARDIS is acting up." _Sorry about the lie,_ he added in his mind.

"Oh, alright." She leapt to her feet, laughing. "Last one to the TARDIS is a rotten egg!"

"Hey! Not fair, you've got a head start!" he shouted as he scrambled up frantically.

He sincerely hoped she hadn't heard the quarrelling couple just now.

 _A/N: Hi guys! I forgot to leave an AN in the prologue so here's one. Please let me know in the reviews whether you like it or not and where you think this is gonna go. I like reading reviews and will try to respond to them if I have time. See you in the next chapter! (:_


	3. Chapter 2

Rose bounced through the front door. "I got a job!" she screamed excitedly as she hugged the Doctor in excitement.

"Hey, that's nice!" He grinned. "Finally you can start to be financially independent."

"I know! And at least I'll have something to talk about to other normal people. Sometimes my friends think I've gone completely crackers," she sighed.

He pulled away from the hug reluctantly. "So when do you start?"

"Monday. Today's Friday. I've got the weekend to celebrate!" she cheered.

"Let's go off adventuring then," he suggested excitedly.

"Well, actually, I was thinking more of going down to celebrate with my friends. Would you mind, though?" she asked cautiously.

"No, not at all! Go on. Just stay safe." He smiled at her, and she grinned, running off to the bedroom.

The minute he heard the bedroom door close, the smile faded from his face.

It was only a matter of time. This was only the beginning…

He sat down dejectedly in a chair and let his thoughts wander. Soon, he fell asleep, not having slept for the past two months, which is like not having slept for a whole week in human terms.

Soon Rose came out, and finding him fast asleep in the chair, kissed his forehead and left a note on the table, then quickly left the house.

Late that night, Rose staggered into the kitchen, obviously really drunk. She found the Doctor still asleep in the chair. "Blimey, how long have you gone without sleep?" she muttered. She pulled up a chair next to him and did nothing but gaze at his innocent sleeping face for the next hour or so until she, too, fell asleep on his lap.

Next morning, the Doctor opened his eyes to find Rose in his lap, snoring loudly. Disoriented, he tried to stand up and realised that if he moved in the least, he would wake her up. He sighed and gently shifted her away, then stood up and carried her to the bedroom.

He tucked in a corner of the blankets. "How drunk did you get? Did any bloke force himself on you?" he muttered. Sitting down on the bed, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and stroked her head. "We gotta make the good times count. Make 'em last while they still can. Please don't let it slip away. I never want our happy life to slip away. Alright?"

She stirred in her drunken sleep and groaned a little. The Doctor sighed as he walked out of the room, knowing very well that what must happen, will happen.

 _A/N: Hey guys! So I decided to make each chapter shorter, about 500 words, more or less, because I'm also doing this for something on Instagram and the regulations say it has to be about 500 words. Also, I couldn't possibly make it too long cos I am terrible at writing when I don't have inspiration, so I thought I'd better not risk it and then fail everyone's expectations. Leave a review and tell me what you think. See you in the next chapter! (:_


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